Jack Wilshere is a special talent, a teenager that more than held his own against the best midfield trio in world football at the Emirates on that famous night against Barcelona. He is the one player that I think will replace Cesc Fabregas in terms of game influence. I really believed that we would see a stronger Jack Wilshere at the start of this season. He had that glow around him in the early pre season

I have some bad news to tell you all. Squid Boy picked up a niggle and will be out for sometime, as he focuses on his studies, so I will be slotting into his place, a little like a Squillaci replacing Vermaelen. Not only that but a Squillaci that hasn’t had a pre season to pick up any sharpness or fitness.

I would like to thank the Squidster for his great writing over the last few weeks and hopefully he can still find the time to write when he can.

While we are on the subject of niggling injuries, I guess we can only start in one place today. Jack Wilshere. After rumours of a three month lay off it was later confirmed that Jack the boy Wilshere will be missing for 2-3 months as he attempts to avoid any Vermaelen type set backs. You could say that we should not be in a position to massively miss the services of a 19 year old who had just come off the back of his first full season in the Premier League but that would be assume that Jack Wilshere is the normal 19 year old midfielder.

Jack Wilshere is a special talent, a teenager that more than held his own against the best midfield trio in world football at the Emirates on that famous night against Barcelona. He is the one player that I think will replace Cesc Fabregas in terms of game influence. I really believed that we would see a stronger Jack Wilshere at the start of this season. He had that glow around him in the early pre season games in Asia, while the competition was not the greatest he appeared to have more of a swagger about him and that was exciting.

The Yossi Benayoun loan move looks a little more obvious now. Arsene Wenger obviously knew what Jack’s situation was and probably brought in Yossi B to fill in the gaps and give us another option until Wilshere is not only recovered from injury but is also sharp enough to stamp his authority on games consistently.

Midfield Options

While we have a selection of good midfield cover, and there are some very good players in there but I don’t think any of the above are the type to break down opposition defences consistently. However what we do have in midfield is a vast amount of experience, something we have not always been able to draw from.

Yossi Benayoun (31), Tomas Rosicky (30) and Arteta (29) will compliment Emmanuel Frimpong (19), Aaron Ramsey (20) and Alex Song (23) rather well.

I still find it strange that we will have so many new options (including youngsters coming through) to choose from that we know very little about, at least in an Arsenal shirt.

Going back to Wilshere, it is far more important that he has good rest and comes back totally fit. The last thing we need is Wilshere having set backs and then being ruled out for the season. We have seen that a little too often over the last few years with some very important players and I would say that Jack Wilshere is now seen as an important player to this new team.

I believe that Jack Wilshere will be a part of a more direct style of football at Arsenal, breaking from deep driving through opposition midfielders with our two wide forwards making inward runs off the ball. Without Jack and Diaby then we miss that option. Funnily enough Yossi Benayoun would be the closest option to Jack but I do not see him higher in the pecking order than the likes of Aaron Ramsey.

Someone at Barcelona is talking about how they got him for a bargain etc, but to be honest I couldn’t give a damn anymore. Cesc is no longer with Arsenal, so I no longer need to think too much about him. Having said that, I would say that picking up a kid at around £500k and then selling for £35m is pretty damn good business at any level.

Cesc has also said what I pretty much guessed before, it was Wenger that convinced the board to let him go. Wenger must have promised Cesc to give him one more year before he would be allowed to return to Barcelona. Arsene is a man of his word and he rewarded Cesc’s loyalty by not standing in his way. I am sure the whole protracted saga was down to the board trying to extract as much cash as possible which is fair enough.

It is easy to say that we should have had this wrapped up in June and then look to replace him. It is a little harder in reality when the buying club offer £6.25 and a packet of Doritos.

Anyway I look forward to the Swansea game, hopefully that will come quickly. I am missing my Arsenal fix, a fix that now has loads of new ingredients that I cannot wait to have flowing through my veins. Omomo14 is also pretty excited about the upcoming game, check out his thoughts in today’s earlier article.

The Oxlade could be in action again for the Englanders under 21s. I shall be watching closely after his good showing against Azerbaijan.

Tomorrow’s collection of games are where we should all be lighting candles, sitting cross legged and praying that we have everyone back safely.

The following players could all potentially play for their national teams.

van Persie vs Finland (a)
Park vs Kuwait (a)
Ramsey vs England (a)
Walcott vs Wales (h)
Mertesacker vs Poland (a)
Szczesny vs Germany (h)
Sagna vs Romania (a)
Koscielny vs Romania (a)
Arshavin vs Republic of Ireland (h)
Vermaelen vs USA (h)
Benayoun vs Croatia (a)
Rosicky vs Ukraine (h)
Djourou vs Bulgaria (h)

International Team

That is thirteen players and I am not great friends with the law of averages. We just do not see eye to eye and I would be amazed if everyone came through unscathed which is somewhat pessimistic I know.

If I had to sacrifice one player to make sure everyone else came through without problems then I don’t actually know who that would be. Anyway, I shouldn’t be thinking that way. I am developing bad karma.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see many of those who have stayed behind feature on the weekend. Arsene isn’t one who likes to play players after Internationals if he doesn’t have to. I suppose that isn’t too many considering the importance of the game.

Anyhoo, it is time for me to wave goodbye for today.

Back again tomorrow.